The -real- enterprise 2.0

The Xpragmatic View #150
August 10, 2010
by Marc Buyens (@mbuyens), Xpragma
marc.buyens@xpragma.com
url: http://www.xpragma.com/view150.php
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Technology has dramatically changed our world. However, most often, these changes were not planned for or expected. In a similar way, when we try using technology to drive change, results are in general highly unpredictable.

Yesterday, we discovered (via @bduperrin) this excellent article by Deb Lavoy, Director Product Marketing at Open Text: Collaborative Culture, or the Real Enterprise 2.0.

The first paragraph of the article immediately grabbed our attention and for once, we couldn't agree more:

The "real" Enterprise 2.0 is not a technology or marketing plan, but the reinvention of the enterprise itself. It's a rethinking of the structure, process, culture and even, in some cases, the very purpose of the enterprise.

Perfectly correct.

Unfortunately, in the remainder of the article, Lavoy returned to a more traditional enterprise 2.0 thinking such as With technology erasing barriers to participation and communication, we're seeing a change in the nature of how we go about running an organization and largely failed to build upon the fundamental consequences of that first paragraph.

... the reinvention of the enterprise itself. It's a rethinking of the structure, process, culture and even, in some cases, the very purpose of the enterprise.

How will such reinvented enterprise look like?

Frankly, we don't know. We don't have a clue. There is only one thing that we know about it: nearly every aspect of that new enterprise will have to be different. The ownership of the organisation, the way of profit sharing, the decision-making process, the status of the employees, the growth ambitions, the size and structure of the organisation... all will have to be fundamentally different.

And that leads us to two further conclusions that we already touched on in earlier Views:

a) It is extremely unlikely that these new enterprises will emerge from the gradual migration or transformation of existing enterprises; and

b) The technological needs of these new enterprises will be fundamentally different from what exists today.

As for that first conclusion, migration or transformation is something that is realistic a long as the fundamental change is limited to a few key aspects, leaving the rest unchanged. However, here we are facing changes that cannot be done without also touching all other aspects of the organisation. That is called reconstruction.

Second, collaboration, transparency, sharing... they will all be core attributes of the "real" enterprise 2.0, but they will exist as fundamental characteristics embedded in the core organisational structure and not as something that is added on top of that structure.

That might be a sad message for the E2.0 vendors, but the "real" enterprise 2.0 is still a faraway dream.

Plenty of time left to do some business.

About Marc Buyens

Marc Buyens is analyst, management consultant and owner of Xpragma. He started Xpragma in 1999 after a 20+ years career in the IT sector. Today, he provides advice, training and mentoring services focusing on the intersection of technological evolution, organisational change and business strategy: a messy world of unfulfilled promises.

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